Kittie

Seven years after making their first splash, the Canadian girls of Kittie still have a career — and it's finally on an upswing. Spit, the group's underrated 1999 debut, was arguably one of the top five albums of the nü-metal era. Singer-guitarist Morgan Lander, then a teenager, alternated sweet melodies and guttural outbursts that seethed with a righteous, articulate feminine fury. On 2001's Oracle, Kittie sacrificed subtlety for metal cred, but just sounded like so many creatively challenged guys aping Pantera, and on 2004's awkward Until the End, the band couldn't decide whether it wanted to rock, get back in touch with its tender side or just quit. Half the players did bail, and Morgan and drummer Mercedes Lander (Morgan's younger sister) regrouped respectably for the new Funeral for Yesterday.